For shipping purposes, bedding products such as mattresses and box springs are commonly placed on edge so that the bedding product is vertically oriented when being handled. Orienting a bedding product in such a fashion so that the bedding product rests upon one of the end surfaces of the bedding product makes the bedding product easier to handle and maneuver when the bedding product is being moved inside a warehouse or from a warehouse either onto or off a delivery truck.
Often bedding products are wrapped together in groups or bundles for shipping purposes. U.S. Pat. No. 5,271,496 discloses a package of bedding products comprising a base and a cap with a plurality of mattresses placed on edge between the base and the cap. The mattresses have aligned upper and lower edges and are wrapped together with an elastic material spirally wound about lateral edges of the mattresses.
Bedding products such as mattresses or box springs may also be individually wrapped. U.S. Pat. No. 801,279 discloses a fabric mattress envelope used to individually wrap a mattress. In addition to fibrous fabrics, mattresses may be wrapped in various types of plastics such as low density or high density polyethylene. However, when a single bedding product individually wrapped with a plastic film of a uniform thickness is shipped, the ends of the plastic wrapping material will rub against either the floor of a warehouse, the bottom of a truck or any other surface and "burn" holes in the plastic wrapping material, thus exposing the bedding product. In this manner bedding products become exposed to dirt, grease and other items which degrade the appearance of the bedding product, sometimes to the extent of preventing its sale to a customer.
One method of individually wrapping a single bedding product to provide increased protection at the ends of the bedding product has been to combine several strips or webs of plastic pulled from multiple rolls in order to increase the thickness of the side edges of the wrapping material. Narrow rolls of plastic film are unwound simultaneously with a main supply roll of plastic film before the strips are joined together along the side edges of the main web. Using this method, three strips or plies of plastic film are joined together to form a web which is passed above and below the bedding product. This method requires at least three separate supply rolls above and below the bedding product which must be unwound simultaneously before the strips pulled therefrom are joined together prior to wrapping the bedding product. Thus, this process is expensive. Furthermore the heat seals between the plastic films may sometimes fail, resulting in an opening exposing the bedding product.
Therefore, it has been one objective of the present invention to provide a method of packaging a bedding product in a plastic film which lessens the likelihood of "burning" holes in the plastic film and exposing portions of the bedding product.
It has been another objective of the present invention to provide a method of packaging an individual bedding product which utilizes only two supply rolls of packaging or wrapping material.
It has been a further objective of the present invention to provide a method of packaging a bedding product which results in the bedding product being enclosed in a plastic film package with increased protections at the ends of the package.
It has been a further objective of the present invention to provide a packaged bedding product wherein the plastic encasing the bedding product has an increased cross-sectional thickness along the end surfaces of the bedding product.